2026 Topps Update Baseball brings back colorful insert Mystical as a short print

The Mystical insert set is now in its third year and has been known for being a very common card to pull in previous years, but not anymore. In the 2026 Topps Update, the color-bursting insert is back as an ultra-rare short-print card. Topps has not yet announced any short-print additions beyond the Mystical insert, which has pack odds of 1:1,515 for hobby packs and 1:788 for jumbo hobby packs.¹ In previous years, Topps made variations of the Mystical insert, both numbered and unnumbered, and you could find any variation in any SKU of the product (including retail), but that is not the case anymore. Just as the All-Aces insert was once common and is now short-printed, these Mystical cards are set to become very desirable.²

Aaron Judge, 2026 Topps Update Mystical #MYS-24. Raw copies sold for $455 on Oct. 15 and $300 on Oct. 16.

All-Aces and its counterpart, All-Kings, appear in Topps Series 1, Series 2, and Update, but Mystical was once an affordable insert and can now sell for a huge markup. Because people don't realize it, an early sale of the new short print of a key rookie, JJ Wetherholt, has gone for a minuscule amount of money, $15, while veteran Mysticals sell for a few hundred dollars each.³

JJ Wetherholt, 2026 Topps Update Mystical #MYS-10. A raw copy sold for $15 on Oct. 14.

With the addition of the new short print, it will be interesting to see whether this insert now appears in all of Topps' flagship products, or whether keeping it Update-exclusive will build annual hype and create scarcity.

All-Aces sold for hundreds once Topps made it a short print

All-Aces is the closest test of what Topps did to Mystical. Topps packed it as an ordinary insert in 2023 Series 1, then cut it to one in every 1,167 hobby packs in 2025 Series 1. Raw copies of the 2023 Clayton Kershaw have sold around $18 since Sept. 7. His 2025 short print has sold around $505 in eight sales this year.⁴

Raw 2023 cards of Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux have sold around $11 to $26 since mid-September. Their 2025 short prints have sold around $190 to $365 this year.

Each 2025 card has sold only seven to nine times this year, against about 100 raw sales for each 2023 card since early September. But a thin market is what a short print creates. Not one of those 2025 copies has sold for less than $104 this year.

The short prints also gained after release. Kershaw's 2025 card sold around $133 from February to June 2025, its first five months out. Maddux, Johnson and Ryan started around $98 to $143 in those months and have roughly doubled or better since.

The older Mysticals still sell for a few dollars

Aaron Judge's and Paul Skenes's Mysticals from 2024 and 2025 still sell for a few dollars because collectors pulled them from retail blasters as well as hobby boxes. Judge's 2026 short print is already going for what the 2025 All-Aces short prints cost, with a $455 sale on Oct. 15.

Expect one Mystical in about 76 hobby boxes

A 2026 Update hobby case holds 12 boxes of 20 packs, or 240 packs. At one Mystical in every 1,515 hobby packs, a collector can expect one in about 76 boxes. The 2025 All-Aces ran at one in 1,167 packs from the same size case, or one in about 58 boxes.

With 25 cards on the checklist, a collector chasing one player can expect to open about 1,900 boxes if Topps spread the cards evenly.

Sellers are asking more than the first sales

On Oct. 16, the cheapest raw Mystical listed for each player ran from $320 for Travis Bazzana to $1,225 for Munetaka Murakami. JJ Wetherholt's Mystical sold for $15 on Oct. 14, but the cheapest copy listed on Oct. 16 costs $1,000.

The closest guide to what comes next is All-Aces, whose 2025 short prints climbed after their first months out. A few days of sales can't show that the Mysticals will follow. But because Topps cut their supply the same way, we expect the 2026 cards to hold their premium over the older ones and keep climbing. For a collector who wants one, these first weeks are the time to buy, at what the cards have sold for rather than what sellers ask. A Judge bid belongs between $300 and $455. For Skenes, start near the $140 his card sold for on Oct. 16 instead of the $499 the cheapest listing costs.